good point, but in order to fix it people are going to have to give up something, whetr it's some tax break, whether it's spending on certain things that they love, when is the day going to arrive that people are willing to d that? maybe it is this year, i thought it was two years ago, that there would be something different and frankly, even with a lot of the the tea party candidates moving in, we dn't see that much movement when trying to fix our financial situation in d.c. >> ben stein? >> well, because we-- people aren't willi to raise taxes there's not enough to cut, there's a discretionary funding. and a huge majority of these expenditures are fixed by law or flew defense we absolutely need. i think a bigger question, why are these foreigners especially very clever, extremely well-versed foreigners willing to buy some of our debt and must see some value that maybe we're too modest and self-efacing to see ourselves. obviously, this country has tremendous value to the rest of the world. >> neil: you're right. thmodesty is what i've always liked about myself. (laughter) >> you know